Magical Aesthetics of Unicorns in Girlhood Visual Culture

Abstract

Unicorns appear as enchanted and enchanting figures throughout fairy tales, popular media, fan art, and products, often intended or marketed for young girls. How can reading, viewing, and artmaking encounters with the mythical unicorn in artist books, which often appear in fairy tales authored by women, as well as in paintings, tapestries, illuminated letters, and films foster girls’ imaginative power and empowerment fantasy? The authors’ reflective inquiry about their community fairy tale arts workshop revealed elementary school girls’ specific interest in a variety of unicorn imagery and characters from medieval art to contemporary television. Recognizing girls’ interest in unicorn narratives, the authors, in this essay, explore how critical reading and the creation of art and stories about unicorns can teach girls to begin envisioning their agency through art. Specifically, their research asks: What gendered expectations and stereotypes about girlhood and womanhood may be embedded in a unicorn image? In what ways does the girls’ fascination with unicorns also defy these stereotypes? Since a great deal of unicorn imagery can be traced back to Eurocentric books and visual culture, how can contemporary and counterculture versions of the unicorn revise whiteness and heteronormativity in visions of girlhood?